Egyptian atheist attacked and arrested

Alber Saber, a former christian and currently an atheist, admin of the "Egyptian Atheists facebook page" was attacked by mob and arrested by the police on Thursday evening. He is accused of atheism , disgracing religions, and disseminating the anti-islam film (he only shared it on his page) .

It's still vague how it all started , but one news site stated that Alber (24 years) invited a muslim friend to his house when that friend used Alber's PC and knew of his atheism and the facebook page he is running. a fierce argument erupted between the both , he dragged him to the streets were the mob gathered and attacked Alber, they even wanted to burn his house.

The police was called in, they arrested him and accused him of the charges mentioned above.

There is a video of the incident uploaded on YouTube where the angry mob is seen demanding Saber be apprehended. Hundreds of angry protesters had gathered before police arrived. As Saber was hauled to the police van, insults were heard being hurled at the man, with many calling for his death due to him being an infidel.

Alber decided to go on hunger strike starting from today, what i fear is that even if they set him free, the mob won't let him live and they will probably kill him.

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LUXOR, Egypt (AP) — A teacher in southern Egypt punished two 12-year-old schoolgirls for not wearing the Muslim headscarf by cutting their hair, the father of one girl said Wednesday, in an incident that stokes concerns over personal rights following the rise of Islamist political movements.

The governor of Luxor province where the incident occurred called the teacher's actions "shameful" and said she had been transferred to another school. But rights groups say that some Islamic conservatives have been emboldened by the success of groups like Muslim Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Salafi trend in parliamentary and presidential elections and have been increasingly brazen about forcing their standards on other Egyptians.

The incident follows a surge in legal cases against Egyptians, mostly Christians, who allegedly showed contempt for religion. The trial of one, Alber Saber, opened Wednesday but was postponed.

It also comes amid a fierce debate over how the role of religion will be defined in the country's new constitution. The preponderance of Islamists on the panel drafting the document has alarmed liberals and religious minorities.

In the village of Qurna in Luxor province, 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Cairo, Berbesh Khairi El-Rawi said the teacher forced the two girls to stand with their hands above their heads for two hours and then cut their hair in their school.

El-Rawi, the father of one of the two girls, told The Associated Press that he filed a complaint after the Oct. 10 incident with the prosecutor's office in Luxor. He had no further comment.

In another incident that raised concerns over the freedom of expression, a top parliamentarian suspended the editor-in-chief of a state-owned newspaper for publishing a report deemed an offense to the military.

Ahmed Fahmy, the head of the Islamist-dominated Shura Council upper house of parliament, named a replacement for Gamal Abdel-Rahim after his paper, al-Gomhuria, published a Wednesday report claiming that authorities would soon bar the country's former top military leaders from traveling abroad pending an investigation into alleged corruption and the deaths of protesters during their 17 months in power.

The paper quoted an unnamed judicial source. The report was later denied by the Ministry of Justice, and a member of the armed forces protested what he called an "offense" to the military, the state Middle East News Agency said.

The move to replace Abdel-Rahim prompted criticism from journalists and media watchdog groups. Although the state-owned media formally belong to the Shura Council, which appoints the editors, journalists say it is not the business of the council to take disciplinary measures for publishing offenses.

A group of Abdel-Rahim's colleagues gathered at the paper's offices to protest the decision and declared a strike. Abdel-Rahim told them that he will not abide by the decision. He said that Egypt's union of journalists should decide if there is to be an investigation into the matter.

Fahmy, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, could not be reached for comment.

The state-owned papers, run for years by secular-leaning editors, had a reputation as a mouthpiece for President Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed last year.

Gamal Eid, the head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information media watchdog, said the decision was "arbitrary" and is a continuation of the same "mistakes" of the previous regime.

Yeah, I know - here I sit in the safety of America, "Land of the Free," and say this, but this country was repressive in the beginning - women were hung by religious zealots, as "witches," but we threw it off. Moderate Muslims need to stand up and say, "We don't want to go back to the 10th century, this is the 21st!"

I know, Guys and Gals, that I may seem to be belaboring the point, and you would certainly be justified in saying that I don't understand the Muslim mentality, but it should be obvious that I care, and that I'm deeply disturbed about what is happening in Islamic countries.

Muhammad, or whoever wrote his book, had a clever concept - by saying that Muhammad was "god's" last prophet, that meant that no one could come along and contradict anything Muhammad said. But even the Quran ascertains that "god" personally spoke to the founders, Noah, Abraham, Issac, Jacob and Moses - does Islam maintain that Allah is incapable of personal intervention in the lives of Man?

If Humanity has made the progress it has in the last 1500 years, has it been made without the blessing of Allah? If it is said that such progress has been against the will of Allah, then it must also be conceded that Allah was powerless to prevent it. But if Allah is all powerful, then it must be automatically taken as a given that not only did Allah sanction Humanity's progress, he must have actually worked to make it possible.

If that is the case, are not those who would turn back the clock 1500 years, actually working AGAINST the will of Allah?

Gamal Abdel Rehim the current editor of chief of el Gomhuria newspaper wrote an infamous article in 2005 calling for burning the houses of the Bahai's in Egypt and withdrawal of the Egyptian citizenship from them.

This guy isn't less fasciste than the islamists .. i don't care about him.